


Advice From a Tree

by Zetared



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Infant Death, M/M, probably blasphemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 17:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: Told to “go up there and start some trouble,” Crowley bypasses humanity and goes straight for an angel: The Guardian of the Eastern Gate. An AU.(Book canon, but TV canon references are there)





	Advice From a Tree

He likes the humans.

Bipedal and young and full of curiosity, they wander the Garden from corner to corner and simply revel in the sweet easiness of existence. They eat, they sleep, they engage in God’s wonders. They touch each other with warmth, they speak to each other with patience and kindness. They are innocent to a fault, so much so that it sets the Serpent’s teeth on edge a bit, but Eve and Adam are, by and large, good stock.

Satan resents them. Satan doesn’t understand them. Satan sent a message down the chain of command, and the message was given to Crawly because, quite frankly, nobody else wanted to mess with it. 

It’s vague, that order. Crawly appreciates a lack of specificity. He likes wiggle room and not just because he spends most of his time as a snake and wiggling therefore comes naturally.

Trudging up from Hell into the World isn’t so hard. It’s a matter of the compression of mass and the squeezing of space, mostly. Getting into the Garden itself is also no difficulty. He’s a snake and not a very large one. He looks like he belongs, here.

So well does he blend in with the rest of the fauna, in fact, that the woman--Eve--speaks to him directly, as she does to all of God’s beautiful but non-verbal creatures.

“Good morning, pretty” Eve says.

Crowley sways down from his place among the branches of a big, sprawling tree. He’s heard that the fruit on this one is forbidden. The scuttlebutt is Eve and Adam have been told by God that they might eat freely of any plant in the Garden without fear--except for this one. “Hello,” he replies.

Eve startles. “Oh! You speak.”

“As do you,” he replies, amused.

Eve’s dark skin colors prettily across her cheeks and she ducks her head in apology. “What are you doing up there?” she asks. Curiosity seems to be a mainstay of Eve and Adam’s existence. They spend their long hours in the sunlight moving from flora to fauna and back again, asking questions. Sometimes, God will answer them. (When He does, Crawly always cringes back. The voice of his Father provides only shame and discomfort, now). 

“I am admiring these apples,” Crawly says, which is true enough. He is studying them, more accurately, attempting to determine what he might do with them to best meet the objective that Hell has given him.

“We are not to eat of these,” Eve says, placidly. “God has said that if we do, we may surely die.”

Crawly’s brows, if he had them, would lift at that. “Really?” Crawly nudges a nearby apple with his snout. 

“Oh! Please be careful,” Eve cautions him. “I would not like for you to die.”

Crawly considers that, swaying his body about to look at her more closely. “And what do you know of death?” he asks, mildly. 

Eve tilts her head. “It is...not desirable?” she hazards, clearly unsure. 

Nothing living has ever died, yet. Death is a possibility, of course--God has invented mortality, already--but the Garden is full of life and only life. Eve doesn’t even know what it is that she has been encouraged to fear.

“But you don’t know for certain,” Crawly says, reasonably. “I bet eating this fruit would clear things up. It’s what He calls it, after all: the Tree of Knowledge.”

Eve hums, staring up at the perfect fruits. She shrugs. “If God does not wish for Adam and I to eat the fruit, we should not.”

“Why?” Crawly asks, curious in his own right. “What makes you think so?”

Eve is quiet a long time. “He is our Creator,” she manages, speaking slowly. “He loves and cares for us, so what he says must be right.”

“Loving and caring don’t make someone right all the time,” Crawly suggests.

Eve smiles at him, almost pityingly. “No,” she agrees, “But God’s might and power means He cannot fail to be correct.”

Crawly doesn’t snort at that, as much as he’d like to. If God cannot fail to be right, why did He not prevent the rebel angels from taking action? Why did He not see that Lucifer was causing trouble and stop it in its tracks? Why did he allow so many of his children to Fall at all?

“It is such fine fruit,” Crawly tries, one last time.

Eve smiles again, a little more genuinely. “Yes. All the fruit here is fine. In fact, I believe I will go yonder and pick some. Goodbye, snake.”

Crawly watches her go, hissing softly. He’ll try again later, after he’s had time to shore up a stronger argument.

\--

There are four gates in Eden. All are guarded by angels. Crawly does not remember any of the warriors he spies on. They are cherubs, he thinks. Rather high on the ladder. If Crawly recalls correctly--rather a lot of time has passed since the Fall and the Creation of man--each one of them has possession of a sword, flaming with holy fire. He should probably keep away from the angels, considering that.

But the Guardian of the Eastern Gate is a strange one, and Crawly can’t help but watch him from afar simply out of interest. 

The other angels are what Crawly considers typical. Tall, broad, imposing. Stone-faced and brimming with righteous dedication. They stand at their posts with rigid spines and ready weapons, staring out at the greater world with suspicious eyes.

The Guardian of the Eastern Gate, after the first few days or so, peeks about and--seeing he is not watched--steps back from his post a few strides and sits down on a big, flat rock. He lays his sword down beside him, leans back on his hands, and stares up at the blue, blue sky instead of the shifting sands beyond his gate.

Once or twice, Crawly catches the angel pilfering--well, all right; it’s “freely given”, so it’s probably not _really_ stealing--figs and things from the nearby trees. He takes as much pleasure from the foods as the humans seem to do. It’s strange and amusing to watch.

And, actually, the angel’s obvious affinity for edible matter gives Crawly a whopper of an idea. Eve refuses to eat the apples from the forbidden tree. Crawly thinks he could wear her down, in time, but the process is difficult and, honestly, boring. But the angel is interesting. And the angel seems just as susceptible to a bit of temptation as Eve or Adam--maybe even more so. 

Why stop at convincing Eve to eat what is forbidden? Why not go for the grand prize and tempt an angel, instead?

Crawly can’t stop musing on his idea. It haunts him with intriguing questions. Questions like ‘would an angel who ate what God forbids Fall?’ and ‘A poisoned apple could hardly kill an immortal, ethereal being, could it?’ and ‘what does the damn fruit really _do_ , anyway?’ 

Cause trouble. That’s all he’s been told to do. 

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Crawly asks the angel as he slithers up onto the angel’s favorite rock. The stone is blissfully warm against his scales and he cannot help but take a moment, briefly, and bask in the sun.

The angel glances down at him. “Oh, hello. Are you new? I haven’t seen a creature like you, before.”

Crawly undulates his body in a shrug. “New enough,” he says, evasively. He directs his gaze upward, as the angel had been doing. “That cloud looks like a cat.”

The angel hums, noncommittal. Perhaps he hasn’t seen a cat, yet. Perhaps he, like most of his breed, is boring and lacks imagination entirely. 

“Looks more like one of those raccoon creatures, to me. See? There’s the mask.” The angel points and swoops his finger in a figure-eight pattern. 

Crawly tilts his head. “Oh, I see it! It even has rings on the tail.”

The angel smiles warmly at him. “Exactly.”

Crawly shifts his coils. “I’m called Crawly,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Aziraphale,” the angel says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Crawly blinks slowly at the small show of kindness. “Likewise.” 

They watch the clouds for a while. It’s always a lovely day in Eden--rain does not need to fall to maintain the beauty of the Garden, and storms haven’t been invented, yet--so the clouds are few and far between. They are, regardless, white and fluffy and quite perfect for making pictures.

“That’s a duck,” Crawly declares, after a while.

The angel tilts his head farther back. “Oh, yes.”

They speak so back and forth for the better part of the morning before Crawly determines it might be a good idea to quit with this temptation while he’s ahead. “I’m going to take a nap,” he says. “I’ll sssee you around, Angel.”

“Of course. Have a lovely rest! Thank you for stopping by.”

Crawly would like to be petty. He’d like to sneer to himself over the angel’s easy kindness and his willingness to engage with a _demon_ of all things (even if Crawly’s true nature may not be entirely recognizable, at the moment). But he cannot. It had been enjoyable, actually, to lay in the sun and make a game of the sky. 

Not much of enjoyment going around, back in the pits of Hell.

\--

Crawly is not known for his patience. The very next day, he approaches the angel and says, without preamble, “There are some especially fine fruits further into the Garden, far from your post. May I bring you some?”

The angel lifts a hand in greeting and absorbs this question with a wide smile. “Oh. Well. I--if it isn’t too much trouble…?”

It most definitely is not. 

“I’ll be right back,” Crawly assures him in answer, and he slithers straight to the forbidden Tree.

\--

He’s not stupid. He doesn’t present the angel with the apple alone. Instead, he yanks a giant leaf from a nearby bush and goes around the middle section of the Garden, accumulating a nice variety of fruits. Once done with that, it’s a simple thing to wrap himself around one of the smaller, redder apples on the Tree and yank it from its perch. It falls to the ground and Crawly nudges it into place on his mocked up dish before grabbing the stem of the leaf in his mouth and wiggling back to Aziraphale’s post.

It would be easier to take on his humanoid form, of course. Thumbs are damned useful for this sort of thing. Legs, too. But he can’t risk the uncomfortable and accusatory questions such a transformation will doubtlessly cause. 

Aziraphale doesn’t entirely seem stupid, either. He’d probably notice.

As it is, Crawly is panting fitfully by the time he makes it back to the big, flat rock. The angel glances over at his approach and immediately makes a small noise of distress.

“Oh! You poor thing. You didn’t have to do all that just for me. Come here.” The angel then _lifts_ Crawly off the ground and sets him with infinite care in his own wide lap, stroking his pudgy fingers over Crawly’s scales in a soothing pass.

Crawly goes still with shock.

“Beg your pardon,” Aziraphale apologizes. “Perhaps that was too familiar of me?” 

Crawly sways his head from side to side. “No. It’s...fine. I brought you snacks.”

Aziraphale smiles down at him. “I see that! Quite the bounty. Thank you, dear Crawly.”

If he was not a snake, Crawly would blush. A slimey, uncomfortable feeling is starting to churn in his guts. Perhaps his idea is not such a good one, after all. Perhaps it’s not...well. It certainly _isn’t_ the _right_ thing to do. That’s the point, though, isn’t it?

Aziraphale makes an intrigued noise. He reaches for the apple. “How interesting! I haven’t seen one of these before.”

“They’re rare,” Crawly hedges. 

Aziraphale tilts the apple this way and that, admiring the color. “Are they sweet?”

Crawly isn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m not sure,” he finally admits. “I haven’t tried one.”

Aziraphale picks up his sword. For one brief, hysterical moment, Crawly believes himself to have been found out, believes he is about to be discorporiated right here and now by a righteous, angry warrior of God. 

But the angel only braces the short blade between his knees and smacks the apple against the sharp edge of it, cutting it neatly in half, width-wise.

“It makes a lovely star shape! Look.” Aziraphale puts his sword aside and turns the two halves of the apple, displaying the core. It does, indeed, have a nice pattern to it. 

Aziraphale puts one of the halves down on the rock, right in front of Crawly’s nose. “You should taste it first, I think. It’s only fair, after you did so much work to bring it to me.”

Crawly stares at the apple in horror. He hadn’t expected this turn of events. “Oh, I really couldn’t--.”

“Please,” Aziraphale says, graciously. “Dine with me? It’s what friends do, isn’t it? Share experiences and all that?”

The angel sounds so legitimately uncertain of the truth of this statement that Crawly’s heart clenches in a very annoying manner. “Yeah, Angel. That’s true.”

Aziraphale grins at him. “So?” He lifts his own half of apple and uses it to gesture at Crawly meaningfully.

Crawly closes his eyes briefly. How bad can it possibly be? He’s a demon. He’s already done the worst against God as he can possibly do, hasn’t he? He’s probably immune. “Okay, but don’t neglect your share on my account,” the demon says, casually. The angel nods his easy agreement. And Crawly takes a bite.

A moment later, Aziraphale does the same, still smiling.

Then, as the angel chews and swallows the juicy, crisp fruit, the peaceable smile falls off his face.

Crawly completely understands why. He doesn’t feel like smiling, either. He doesn’t feel especially well at all, in fact. 

The world opens up before them. The vibrant colors of the beautiful Garden go dimmer in their eyes. The sounds of the animals and the rustle of the breeze in the lush greenery clang against their ears, dissonant and strange. 

Angels and demons possess free will. All of God’s creatures do. (If they did not, the Fall could never have happened in the first place). Ostensibly, angels and demons also have a solid grasp of what is right and what is wrong. 

What they do not have, naturally, is a strong sense of perspective. Angels and demons are inherently loyal to their causes. They are creatures of their environments. Angels do good, demons do bad, end stop. Certainly, there might be room for concern (what if an angel accidentally goes bad? What if a demon accidentally does good?), but it is fleeting. It’s in their natures to act as they must without question. Free will exists for them, but they do not understand it, in its entirety. They do not, as a rule, see the broader implications. A being with free will does not only possess the capacity to Fall. A being with free will may also, just as easily, Ascend. 

For the first time, the angel and demon understand just how fallible their respective sides can be. For the first time, they can stand in each other’s shoes--metaphorically; both of them are barefoot and shoes have not been invented, yet--and, truly, _understand_. 

It’s all shades of gray. It always has been.

They know, for the first time, that good and evil are subjective. That morality is about choice. And they have plenty of choice before them for the taking.

“The Hell,” Crawly breathes.

“My word,” the angel replies, equally weakly. 

They exchange glances.

“You’re a demon,” Aziraphale says. It is not an accusation. Just a statement of fact.

Crawly drops his snake form, transitioning into the guise of a humanoid figure with bright gold, split-pupil eyes. “Yes.”

Aziraphale considers him and then looks down at the rest of the apple in his own hand. “It seems so innocuous,” the angel remarks.

“I tried to give it to the woman, Eve. I--she didn’t want it.” Crawly pauses. “I’m glad she didn’t take it.”

Aziraphale nods a bit, expression rather blank. “Yes. I suspect that would have been a bit of a mess, all around.”

Crawly cannot imagine Eve and Adam burdened with this vast, churning knowledge. It’s the sort of thing that changes everything. And Eve and Adam, mortal as they are, have enough change in store for them already, even in a place as consistent and perfect as Eden.

Crawly’s eyes drift over the Garden. “It seemed--? Before?”

Aziraphale follows his gaze. “Yes, I quite agree.”

The Garden is no less beautiful. It’s no less vibrant and alive and thriving. But there is something to the look of it, now, through their eyes, that strikes them as distinctly ephemeral. Crawly might go so far as to use the word ‘doomed.’

“Something feels wrong,” Aziraphale says. “Beyond only that, I mean.”

Crawly nods his head. “It’s like missing a step on the stairs.”

“On the what?”

Crawly remembers that spiraling staircases going down, down, down is more of a feature of Hell than Heaven (angels just fly everywhere they go, the prats). “Nevermind. I agree. Something feels...off.”

Crawly has the creeping, dreadful feeling that he’s made a poor choice. He’s done the incorrect thing. Not the _bad_ thing. Not the _good_ thing. It’s just _wrong_. 

Crawly glances over at the flummoxed looking angel. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out.

Aziraphale peers at him with wide eyes. “It’s--well. I suppose one can’t really say ‘it’s in your nature,’ now.” 

Crawly swallows. He puts the remnants of his own apple--sticky and already browning--to the side. “No, I suppose not.”

Choices. There are choices. Crawly made a choice. He could have chosen not to give the apple to anyone at all. Not to Eve, not to Adam, not to the angel next to him. His orders from Hell are utterly beside the point. He did not _have_ to obey.

“I don’t think we should mention this to anyone, do you?” the angel asks, faux-causal, voice rather tight.

Crawly nods vigorously. “Oh, definitely. Absolutely not.”

The angel’s smile is relieved. “Good.”

They both find themselves looking up at the sky, again.

“That one looks like a dove,” Aziraphale says, idly.

Crawly follows his pointing finger. “Angel,” he says, with budding fondness, “That’s a wolf head. Look at it upside down.”

And Crawly grins, watching Aziraphale immediately all but stand on his head with a faint “I see it, now! What teeth!”

_\--_

Crawly bumps into Eve a good while later. She’s naked, which is not something Crawly had ever thought about, before (all of God’s mortal creations are unclothed), but now it strikes him as an important and rather embarrassing detail. 

She smiles at him. “I remember you. But you look different.”

Crawly shrugs, enjoying the shoulders he has with which to do such a thing. “Trying something new. You need a hand with that?”

Eve is carrying a heavy rock. “That would be very kind, thank you.”

“What are you doing with this thing, anyway?” Crowley asks, peering down at it. It’s nothing special, just a big gray stone. It’s heavy in his arms as much as hers, but he can use his demonic power and cheat.

She smiles warmly at him, leading the way. “I am making something.”

“‘Making something’?” Crawly repeats. He has watched the humans enough to know that this isn’t entirely unusual. Their natural curiosity leads to innovation, from time to time. Not so long ago, Crawly had caught Adam in the process of weaving several flowers together into a circlet, which he then had painstakingly settled into Eve’s tight curls. 

“A shelter,” Eve says.

Crawly frowns at her back. Eden is full of natural outcroppings. There are plenty of places to recline and rest. There is no true need for much else. The weather is always fair, the animals are all completely harmless. (All thoughts he might not have had, before. It would not have occurred to him as strange, before eating the apple. Eden is, after all, the first and only of its type. There is nothing to compare it to, if one doesn’t have a new, broader perspective at hand). “Why?”

“For fun,” Eve replies, brightly. She leads him into an open clearing. In the middle of it is a square-ish figure. It has four short walls made of several stacked up stones just like the one Crawly carries. Obviously, construction is in progress.

“Huh,” Crawly says, thoughtfully. “You’re going to live in it?”

Eve nods. “I think so. It’s nice, right?”

“Yeah,” Crawly agrees. It’s wobbly, actually, and there’s going to be a terrific draft coming in between the rocks. But Crawly supposes it’s all right, for the first ever human house.

\--

Rather more than seven days pass. And then even more.

In due time, Eve and Adam finish constructing their tiny house. Crawly watches them do it, sometimes offering suggestions (such as “what if you used mud to patch up the gaps?” and “what if you left an open square, here, to look out of?”). Mostly, though, he only watches. Then, at the end of each day, as the sun sets, he goes to the Eastern gate and shares his observations with the only creature on all of God’s earth who can truly understand him.

“So strange,” the angel says, not for the first time. Even with his newly acquired insight into the nature of reality, the angel doesn’t quite understand what the humans are doing.

Crawly shrugs. “It’s a good use of their time. Fun.”

Aziraphale nods. “I understand that bit. It’s the idea of doing such a thing at all. How did they come up with it?”

“Eve said that she’d watched some of the animals and learned from them. The rabbits, you know, they make big holes in the ground and sleep there.”

“But _why_?” the angel questions, frowning. It’s not a question he might have asked, before the apple. It borders to closely on questioning God’s will, to question the behavior of His creations.

Crawly looks up at the sky. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But thinking about it gives me that same missing-step feeling as before. Does it you, too?”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes.” A pause. “I can’t say that I care for it.”

Crawly agrees, but he doesn’t say so. The demon points up. “Look, it’s a sheep.”

Aziraphale shoots him a look. “All of them look like sheep.”

Crawly grins.

\--

One day, Crawly finds himself thinking about fire. 

“You know, that could be useful to them,” the demon says, gesturing toward the currently unlit form of Aziraphale’s sword.

“Beg pardon?”

“The fire. The humans.”

“In what way?”

Crawly shakes his head. He’s not certain. It’s not as if the humans are in need of light or heat. Eden’s nights are bright with stars and moon. Eden’s air is always the perfect temperature, never too cool or too damp. He cannot say for sure why this knowledge sits uncomfortably in his mind, but it does. It feels like a puzzle with a missing piece. “It’s pretty,” he lands on, hesitantly.

Aziraphale lights the sword and looks upon it speculatively. “I suppose that’s true.” A pause. “But Eden is full of things that are nice to look at. It’d be...dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

Crawly thinks of Hell. Hell burns. It is, indeed, quite dangerous. 

“The folks down below roast things in it,” Crawly says, thoughtfully. “Bugs and rats that find their way down under the ground.”

Aziraphale’s eyes go very wide. “Truly? How awful.”

Crawly shrugs. “It’s just that you could do that with all kinds of things, couldn’t you?”

“But _why_?” the angel demands.

Crawly considers this. “It’d make it softer,” he says, musingly. “You could put a vegetable of some sort in it and, and cook it.”

Aziraphale’s horror slips into thoughtfulness and then interest. “And then eat it?” he asks, just to be sure.

Crawly nods. “Yeah.”

The angel makes a small noise of intrigue. “I should like to try that,” he agrees.

\--

The next day, Crawly brings the angel a wide leaf again, this time with a bunch of wild vegetables on it. Vegetables tend to be less sweet than the things that grow on the trees and bushes. Most of them require digging up. Eve and Adam aren’t very fond of the things, overall.

Together, they test their theory, sticking bits of root vegetables into the flame of Aziraphale’s sword. The first few times, it all goes quickly to inedible charcoal. But after a few test runs, they get the hang of it. Aziraphale pulls a soft, browned carrot out of the fire and blows on the end before taking a nibble. 

The angel’s resulting noise seems positive. Crawly nabs the rest of it from the angel’s fingertips and eats it. 

It’s good.

Crawly nods. “There, see? They need fire.”

Azirapahle frowns at the blazing hilt of his sword. “If you think it’s best,” he says, slowly. He looks down at the assortment of food on the broad, green leaf. “Here, hand me another one.”

Crawly brings the humans a big stick with a burning end. They keep it in the corner of their home, walled in with stones and kept alive with dry bits of wood and growth. Eve finds a rock with a hollow concave in it and sets it in the fire with bits of food on top of it; this helps with the charring issue quite a lot. 

Eve and Adam seem much more fond of eating the Garden’s savory plants, after that.

\--

The humans have discovered--well, Eve and Adam seem to have learned something else from the rabbits.

Crawly watches them a few times out of pure scientific intrigue, but after a time he gets bored of it. He spends more time during his days with the angel, for a while, while the novelty of the thing wears off.

Aziraphale makes a soft, surprised noise at Crawly’s report. “My. Do you think He meant for that to happen?”

Crawly lifts a shoulder. “Who can say, really?” They certainly can’t. God speaks directly to His human creations less and less as the days pass. When God fails to answer pressing questions, Eve often comes to Crawly, instead. He does his best, but it doesn’t sit right, especially when he hasn’t a clue of the answer any more than Eve does.

Crawly rubs his palms down over his knees, nervously. “I haven’t heard from my superiors at all. Have you?”

The angel shakes his head. This seems, superficially, to be good news. If no one from Above or Below has checked in, that seems to indicate that Aziraphale and Crawly’s little apple incident continues to be a secret.

Even so, there are days when Crawly wishes he’d be recalled to Hell and grilled a bit. There’s a vast difference between a bit of wiggle room and all out abandonment. More and more, the demon feels spectacularly over his head.

Aziraphale looks over at him. His face is infinitely kind. “I’m sure it will all turn out all right,” he says, very angelically.

Crawly pokes the angel in his soft, undefended side. “Don’t patronize me. Save that beatific cherub stuff for the humans,” he huffs.

Aziraphale laughs. “My dear, I would never!” 

\--

There’s a baby. 

Crawly--Crowley, now, actually; he’d started to feel the old name didn’t really suit a demon who spent all his days on two feet instead of shimmying over the ground--stares down at the soft, tiny human in his arms. It looks a lot like Adam. Deep black skin, crooked lips. But its eyes, when they are open, are Eve’s through and through. 

“We intend to call him Cain,” Eve says, warmly. Eve has dark circles of exhaustion under her beautiful eyes, but her smile is wide and she doesn’t seem inclined to do anything but smile for a long while, yet.

“Cain,” Crowley echoes. The baby grabs his finger, tugs on it. Crowley hums. “Yeah. That’s pretty good, I guess.”

\--

There’s quite a lot of begetting, after that. 

Cain and Abel have wives and children. Their children have children. Their children’s children have children. 

The Garden grows loud with humanity. They build small, stone houses just as Adam and Eve had. They keep their fires in the corners, bracketed by low walls to keep the flames safely in. 

Adam and Eve grow very old, but they do not die. Death exists, but he does not come to earth--at least, not yet.

Crowley sits with Aziraphale at their rock near the Eastern Gate whenever the bustle and demands of the village become more than the demon can stand.

“This is weird,” Crowley announces. He often says as much. 

Aziraphale, true to form, only hums in noncommittal non-agreement. “Is it?” he asks, as always.

Crowley shoots him a look. “Stop that. You know it’s odd. God hasn’t said a peep to anybody in generations. The humans keep multiplying. The Garden will run out of resources to sustain them, at this rate.” A pause. “They’ll start eating the animals, then.”

Aziraphale casts him a wide-eyed look. He hasn’t looked so surprised since Crowley suggested they give humans fire. “My dear, surely not! How grotesque.”

Crowley shrugs. He’s been thinking about it a lot, and it makes some sense. If Adam and Eve’s children strip the trees--but not the Tree, God forbid--bare, the animals are just as edible. He might recommend they throw the things in the fire, though. He learned from Hell that the rats are better cooked than raw.

Aziraphale bites his lip. He’s been doing that more and more with each passing year. It’s possible that Crowley isn’t the only one who feels untethered and abandoned. 

“Of course, they _could_ eat the apples, first, as a last resort,” Crowley says, casually. He’s been thinking about that a lot, too. 

God is too quiet. God is too absent. But He might come back, if the humans break His rules.

Aziraphale’s shocked expression borders on livid, now. “Crowley! Don’t say such things.”

Crowley narrows his eyes at the angel. “You’re not about to accuse me of being inherently evil, again, are you? You know that isn’t true.” A pause. “You don’t just know. You capital-K Know, now.”

Aziraphale huffs. It’s true, the angel does sometimes fall on old, prejudicial habits when he and the demon start to argue on certain points. “Eating the apples would cause no end of trouble for them.”

“Would it? I’m starting to wonder. What if they were _supposed_ to, Angel? What if I--what if I muddied up the Plan?”

Aziraphale twists his big hands nervously in his lap. “Oh, dear. It--it’s hardly worth thinking about.”

“But we should. We _should_ think about it, Angel.”

“Wait. Wait until it truly is their only option. Crowley, please.”

“Delaying the inevitable, are we?” Crowley asks, raising his brows at the angel. “Thought you’d be a bit braver than that.”

“Well, I’m not,” Aziraphale snaps. “Just--do as I ask, Crowley, please.”

Crowley shrugs. It doesn’t matter to him, really. Time is fleeting, with humans about. What he suspects will come to pass will do so sooner rather than later. Adam and Eve’s descendants are hungry. Even in Eden, the bounties of nature are refreshed only so quickly. “Whatever you want, Angel. I can wait.”

And he does.

\--

Malik and Sashina smile at Crowley as he approaches their dwelling. Sashina has two of their four children in her arms. The others are older and can walk on their own. They dance around their mother’s bare feet, laughing as they playfully tap their hands on her bare hips. (Humans still have not learned modesty. Crowley can’t bring himself to stress them out by explaining it, either, even though he suspects they’d be more comfortable with some pants on, at least).

“Hello, Serpent,” Malik greets. 

Crowley has not taken his snake shape since the early days, but the name seems to stick to him from generation to generation regardless.

“Hi, Malik,” Crowley replies, wiggling his fingers. “Heard you’ve trouble?”

Malik and Sashina trade glances. “We’re not certain,” Sashina admits. “It’s only, I went to pick berries for the morning meal, as usual, and found the bushes empty.”

“I asked Rena and Esta if they might share from the bushes near their home,” Malik adds, “but they declined.”

Sashina’s brows draw. “We don’t blame them,” she assures, rather too quickly to be truly without resentment, “but we are concerned. What shall the children eat, today?”

Crowley purses his lips. Complaints of his nature have been laid at his feet progressively over the past several days. Somehow, he doesn’t feel especially vindicated, finding his predictions to be coming true.

They are a village of a few hundred, now. Adam and Eve still live, ancient but healthy. Resources are no longer abundant. Neighbors begin to deny their neighbors in a show of entirely unprecedented selfishness. No one in this Garden has ever done anything but share and share alike. 

Just the day before, Crowley had watched, stunned, as old Cain had slapped his brother Abel soundly across the cheek, enraged at the younger for refusing to share space at his wife’s dinner table. Abel had left with little more than a rapidly darkening, swelling eye, but that first show of human violence left a bitter taste in Crowley’s mouth, indeed.

(He understands, conceptually, that he should probably be encouraging such things. It seems like the kind of reaction a demon would want to egg on. But he doesn’t. Crowley hasn’t heard from Hell since that first initial mission briefing, and he’s not likely to want to follow up with Below now.)

“I’ll look into it,” Crowley promises the couple. He pats one of the older kids on the head. 

“Thank you, Serpent,” Sashina says, her relief palatable. 

Crowley clears his throat awkwardly and waves over his shoulder as he makes a rapid departure. He needs to talk to Aziraphale immediately.

\--

Aziraphale is quiet for a long, long time. The angel tilts his head, looking up at the always-perfect sky. 

“ _Can_ they starve to death, do you think?”

Crowley startles, going rigid with disbelief. “Are you serious?”

The angel flutters his wings, agitated. “It’s only a question.”

Crowley swallows. “I-I don’t know. I think maybe so? And even if it doesn’t _kill_ them, Angel, just think about...just _imagine_ \--.”

Aziraphale nods. “It would be rather ghastly,” he agrees, matter-of-fact. Sometimes Crowley questions whether or not Aziraphale general aloofness where the humans are concerned is an angelic trait or something inherent to the angel specifically. Either way, it rankles. 

Crowley clenches his fists and then forces them to relax. It isn’t Aziraphale’s fault that he acts so distant and above it all. The angel is stuck at his post all day and night. He barely knows about the humans at all, excepting what Crowley tells him after the fact. It’s Crowley who knows them, who watches them grow and love and _be_. It’s Crowley who will have to watch them wither away to flesh and bone.

“Let me show them the tree. I can start with the younger ones. They’ve never heard from God directly. His dictates mean nothing, to them.”

Aziraphale sniffs at that, reproachful. Even after the apple, the angel clings to the oddest notions about Heaven and God and the Plan. Crowley allows it. Usually, it doesn’t truly matter. This time, however, it does.

“Angel, please. I can’t watch them starve. I really can’t.”

Aziraphale rubs his plump hand over his face. He stopped eating the Garden’s bounty ages ago, out of respect for the mortals, but he remains as soft as ever. Angels and demons can’t starve. They don’t even know what hunger is. Not really.

“Wait a while longer,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley flinches. “But--.”

“Just a while, Crowley. I think--I hope that He might intercede on His own, given time.”

Crowley stares at the angel, blankly. “You really--you have that kind of faith, after all this?”

The angel shoots him a sour look. “My dear,” he says, chidingly. “Of course I do.”

 _Because I’m not Fallen_ , his tone says, even if his words do not. _I still have something I believe in. I can still feel His grace, even if not his presence._

Crowley rubs his hands on his knees. “Right. Okay. Sure. I can--I’ll just talk to the lot of them. Introduce the idea of rationing, maybe. It’s fine.”

Aziraphale pats him on the shoulder. “Of course it’s fine,” the angel agrees, cheerfully. “You’ll see.”

\--

Azarel is more terrifying than Crowley remembers. Azarel had not Fallen. He is still a dedicated servant of the Lord. But his wings are massive and black. His body is rotten. His eyes are dark, unending sockets with nothing looking back. If anyone were to be mistaken for a creature of Hell, Death might be it. 

But he is an angel, all the same.

Crowley steps a few strides back out of his way accordingly. “Uh, hi?”

Death turns to him. DEMON, he greets, WHERE IS MY CHARGE?

Crowley swallows thickly. He doesn’t like this, any of this. “In her crib. In the house over there.” He points.

Death gives him a nod and starts to glide toward the house in question. Crowley hesitates a beat before chasing at his bony heels. 

“She starved,” Crowley explains, all in a rush. “Her mother is hungry and not producing the milk she ought. They’re all hungry, you see. I didn’t--we--I’m surprised that they’re dying. No one’s died here, before.”

Death stops. He turns his skull to face Crowley with his unreadable lack of eyes. YOU SEEM CONCERNED.

“I-I’ve been here a long time. Tempting humans and the like. I’m just wondering--if they all die, what am I supposed to do, exactly?”

YOU FEAR FOR YOUR JOB SECURITY? 

“Er, sure.”

YOU SHOULD. IT IS TRUE I CANNOT TAKE THEM EASILY, HERE. AGE WILL NOT LEAD THEM TO ME. AND ILLNESS HAS NOT YET BEEN INVENTED. BUT THERE ARE ACCIDENTS. AND THERE IS HUNGER AND THIRST. AND THERE WILL BE MURDER, I SUSPECT, IN TIME. Crowley frowns. “What’s...murder?”

Death doesn’t answer. He continues on his path. 

“Hey! They--you can’t just walk up to them like this. Her parents, you’ll scare them half to dea--well, you know.”

Death stops again. YOU CARE ABOUT THEM. It is, alarmingly, not a question.

Crowley swallows. He rubs his hands on his thighs and clears his throat. “I, erk, _well_ \--.”

I WILL NOT BE SEEN BY THE LIKES OF THEM. Death tells him. THEY WILL NOT BE AFRAID. THEY ALREADY FEAR ENOUGH. DEATH IS TERRIFYING, FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN MORTALITY. 

A pause. YOU NEED NOT FEEL SORROW FOR HER SOUL, DEMON. SHE IS THE FIRST HUMAN TO EVER LEAVE THIS LIFE BEHIND. SHE WILL BE THE FIRST OF THEM IN GOD’S ETERNAL KINGDOM--PRACTICALLY A CELEBRITY.

“Eternal--?” Crowley allows himself to blink. “Are--do you mean to say that they’re going to _Heaven_?”

Death’s neck creaks as he nods.

Crowley feels himself go abruptly, thoroughly cold. “Oh,” he says, in a small, lost voice. “I see.”

And he doesn’t follow Death anymore, after that.

\--

Crowley sits on Aziraphale’s rock. He is silent, unmoving. The angel has tried to engage him in conversation many times, now, but the demon ignores him and simply continues to stare, unseeing, at the perfect sky. 

Aziraphale lays a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, his brows drawn in worry, his mouth tight. “Whatever happened?” he presses, again.

Crowley closes his eyes. The sun is as exactly warm as it should be, as it is every day. “Rena’s newest baby died of hunger,” he grits out. 

Aziraphale’s resulting noise is not as pained as it should be, in Crowley’s opinion. The baby hadn’t even been named, yet. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

At least the angel is, as usual, unfailingly polite. 

“Death--Azarel, you remember him?--came for her soul. They go to Heaven. Did you know that? They have immortal souls, and when they die, God will open the Kingdom up to them, just as He did his angels.”

Aziraphale is quiet for a long beat. “Yes. Something of that like was said, I think, before I accepted my post.”

Crowley shrugs the angel’s hand off of his shoulder. “They get to go to Heaven,” he repeats.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, rather cautiously. “The ones who are worthy, of course.”

Crowley’s closed eyes snap open. He whirls to face the angel. “What?”

Aziraphale is _definitely_ cautious, now. He actually scoots back a bit from the enraged demon. “Well, there’s a system. Just in case. Hell should be doing _something_ , shouldn’t it? What’d you think all that tempting was for, dear boy?” 

“They-they’re harmless! Innocent! They don’t--they’d never--!” Crowley goes silent, goes still. “But they wouldn’t have to be, necessarily. They wouldn’t be, would they, if they ate off the Tree?”

Aziraphale looks spectacularly cagey. “I-I’m not sure, dear. I was never told as such. But it does make a certain amount of sense, doesn’t it?”

Crowley falls back, hard, on the rock. He glares up at the clouds. “Ineffable,” he spits. “Unable to be questioned because the answer is impossible to understand. Figures. _Figures_.”

Aziraphale clears his throat. He points up. “That one looks rather like a squirrel, I think.”

Crowley hisses at him, showing his tongue and fangs.

Silence falls between them after that.

\--

Crowley means to go to one of the children. But he goes to Eve, instead.

Her bright eyes warm when she seems him. It’s been a long time. Eve’s hair is white and thin, her skin is fragile and wrinkled around her eyes and lips in lines of her laughter and joy. She moves slowly, perhaps in some pain, but age has only changed her, not ravaged her. That is true of all the elderly, in the Garden. (But Crowley holds a secret thought that Eve is the most sprightly and beautiful of any of them, regardless).

“I’ve heard much about you, lately, Serpent. They say you’re instigating something called a ration.” Her eyes crinkle. “Cain has said you wish for us all to starve equally.”

“Cain’s a brat,” Crowley says with a genuine scowl. 

“Abel says you’re at fault for the death of Rena’s child,” Eve adds. She is not smiling, now.

Crowley winces. “Abel’s a brat, too,” he says, stiffly.

Eve pats his arm and pulls him along after her. They sit on blankets of woven leaves laid down on the packed-dirt floor. “Why are you here to see me?”

Crowley, abruptly, falls over, resting his head on her shoulder. She hums in soft acceptance and runs thin, bony fingers through his hair. 

“You’re upset,” she says, gently.

“Beyond upset,” the demon replies, dully. “I can’t begin to explain why, not really. I just need you to do something for me. A favor.”

Eve makes a small, curious noise. “Oh?” 

Crowley summons the apple from the ether in which he’d stored it. “I need you to eat this.”

Eve pushes him away. Not roughly, but away all the same. She stares from his face to the apple and back again. “You know it is forbidden.”

Crowley nods. “Yeah.” He pauses. “I was going to give it to one of the kids. They don’t know it’s not allowed. Not like _you_ do.”

Eve’s eyes go wide. “That is--.”

Crowley lifts his hands in a ‘peace’ gesture. “I didn’t do it. It seemed--well. Besides, I don’t think this works like that. I think you have to _know_ it’s not allowed and eat it anyway.”

“‘This works’? What works?” Eve has always been immensely clever.

Crowley’s smile is bitter. “Ineffability, of course. Will you eat it, please? You first and then all the rest of them after you. The Tree is full of fruit. It will keep your people from starvation for a while, yet.”

“It isn’t allowed,” Eve echoes, but her old voice wavers tellingly.

Crowley pushes the apple closer to her. “Please. Please, Eve. I can’t watch you all die like the baby did. I really can’t.”

Eve’s eyes go soft as they rest upon him. Her gaze is familiar to him, suddenly. Someone else looked upon him that way, once, just after he’d been formed and made alive. 

“And what happens when the Tree also bears no more new fruit?” Eve asks, gently. “You prolong the inevitable.”

Crowley makes a face. “I don’t--I don’t know. I don’t think it’s like that. I think eating the apple will change something, will give you all a chance to survive.”

Eve looks at him, thoughtful. “You think He will speak to us, if I eat this.”

Crowley’s eyes shift away, guiltily. “I hope so,” he admits. 

“Go and get Adam,” Eve says. “He’s across the way, taking care of the children. Bring him here.”

“Why?” Crowley asks, surprised by the request.

Eve’s old eyes smile again. “Because he is the other part of my soul, Serpent. If I am to invoke the wrath of God, should not my husband do, also?”

Crowley whistles low. “That’s love, eh?”

Eve grins. “That’s love,” she agrees, far too cheerfully.

\--

They split the apple just as Aziraphale and Crowley had, width wise. Crowley admires the star shape of the core. It’s easier than watching the humans take those two damning bites.

Eve and Adam gasp. Their eyes widen and their jaws relax as the world around them shifts and grows and, yet, somehow, also shrinks. 

Eve starts to cry. Adam holds her in his arms and tears track down his cheeks, as well.

“Go away,” Adam demands in a croak of anger and terror combined. “Get out!”

And Crowley goes.

\--

God does not speak. But the sky goes black. And the clouds amass, sticky and dark. And rain falls down in torrents, wet and bitterly cold. 

Crowley runs across the rapidly muddying expanse of the village. All of the humans are speaking among themselves, absolutely terrified out of their minds. It has never, ever rained, before. They don’t know what to do. Crowley, quite frankly, doesn’t know, either.

Light cracks across the sky. Thunder follows, painfully loud.

Crowley yelps in response, certain he is about to be smited at any moment. But his death doesn’t come. And the more minutes pass in which he remains whole and alive, the more he decides that he will likely continue to do so. He turns to the house of Hakim and his mate, gathering one of their younger children to him as he goes. “C’mon,” he shouts at the sodden humans. “Get inside! Inside, now!”

Once they are all huddled in their stone houses, circled around their warm, dry fires, Crowley runs away from the village and toward the Eastern Gate.

Aziraphale is there, trying and failing to shelter himself with his own wings. “I say, what’s happening?”

Crowley expands his own wings out and covers the angel with one. Aziraphale returns the favor back. The stare at the sky as best they can through their interlocking feathers. “Eve and Adam ate the apple,” the demon says, a bit breathlessly. “I don’t think God is happy about it.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes, head tilted as if listening. “I can hear Him,” the angel agrees, “Only just, but He is watching, now.”

“About bloody time,” Crowley grouses, but there’s no true heat in it. He’s too scared to be angry, now. “What do you think He’ll do to them?”

Aziraphale shrugs his shoulders, jostling their wings. “I haven’t the foggiest. But I can’t imagine it will be pleasant.”

Eden is always pleasant. 

Crowley’s eyes skitter through Aziraphale’s gate. There are three others just like it, though Crowley has never bothered to get to close to any of the others or their guards. Outside of the walls of the Garden, there is nothing but desolate, sun-baked sand. 

“He’s going to banish them,” Crowley says, with a shudder.

“Oh, no, do you think so?” Aziraphale asks, worriedly. “But there’s animals, out there! Not like the ones in here, I mean. Proper terrible beasts! Not to mention that there isn’t a bit of green for miles. They’ll really starve, then!”

Crowley bites back his retort that they already are ‘really starving’ in the Garden, anyway, but he doesn’t. He knows what the angel means. Humanity won’t last a day, out there.

“Give them this,” Aziraphale says, out of the blue. He pushes the hilt of his sword into Crowley’s hand. The demon stares at it. 

“What?”

“It’s cold out there! And dark! And they need protection. So give them the blade. They can go out this gate. There’s a loose rock, not so far down.”

Crowley stares at the angel. Something warm blossoms in his chest, building on the tiny spark of friendship that’s been there already for generations. “You’re--you’ll get in trouble.”

“I might,” Aziraphale agrees. “I might not. It doesn’t matter. You’d best go quickly.”

Crowley, still clinging to the unlit blade, nods. “Right! Yes. Thanks.” And off he goes.

\--

Adam’s knuckles go pale around the hilt of the weapon. He’s never had one, before. None of them have.

Crowley directs Adam and his wife to the Eastern Gate. “There’s an angel, there. He’ll guide you out.”

“What about our children?” Eve demands. “I won’t leave them.”

Crowley shakes his head. “The apples. They haven’t eaten any. They might not--God might--.”

“I go with my family or not at all,” Eve snaps.

“But, Eve, it’s _dangerous_ \--.”

“--Or not at all!”

Crowley stares at her. “You’re--you can see He’s angry. God will never forgive them, Eve.”

Eve tightens her jaw. “He will,” she says, sharply. “He loves us. He always said as much. A God who loves us would not cast us out.”

Crowley can’t even laugh, the irony is too thick in his throat. “Right,” the Fallen angel says, dryly. “Of course not.”

“Give them the apples, Crowley. Every one of them.” She pauses. “They must see what we have seen, Adam and I. They have a right to Know as we Know.”

And that, at least, Crowley understands. 

He leads the village to the Tree, all in one massive mob. One by one, they split the fruits between them and eat.

And they see and understand what they never did, before.

\--

Crowley watches all of humanity leave the Garden behind them. None of them seem sad. Most of them are wearing clothes or are wrapped up in their woven fiber blankets. Some of the older ones are even laughing, telling jokes. They’re _excited_ to see beyond the Garden, they are _glad_ to Know.

“How can they be so happy about it?” Crowley demands of Aziraphale as they watch. The rain is still pouring down. It doesn’t seem likely to stop anytime soon. Another bolt of lightning crosses the sky. Crowley flinches back. Aziraphale touches him with a light hand against his spine, holding him steady on the top of the wall.

“It is a rather _small_ Garden, after all,” Aziraphale says, slowly. Decades of experience weigh heavy on his words. “I imagine they are glad of a chance to stretch their wings, a bit.”

Crowley looks sidelong at the angel, reading what is not said. “Don’t suppose you’d like the grand tour? Might as well get that in before God does whatever it is He plans to do with it, right?”

A smile of pure delight crosses the angel’s round face. “Oh, my dear, do you think I could?”

Crowley raises a brow. “I think He might be too occupied with other things to care what you do, at the moment. C’mon, Angel. Let me show you what the humans did with Eden while you were standing around being ever vigilant.”

They fly off the wall in tandem. As Crowley shows Aziraphale the stone buildings and the fireplaces and the woven blankets and bits of cobbled furniture, the two immortal beings stay close to one another, hands clasped tightly so that neither one might happen to stray.

\--

Millennia later, Crowley yawns wide and loudly into Aziraphale’s ear.

The angel waves a hand at him, smacking him accidentally-on-purpose across the cheeks. “My dear, please,” the angel mutters into his pillow.

Crowley’s gasping yawn melts into a soft chuckle. “Good morning to you, too.”

Aziraphale harrumphs at him. Centuries upon centuries sharing a bed, and the angel continues to not be a morning person. 

“You’re gonna be late,” Crowley tells him.

Aziraphale groans at that, which is fair. Crowley wouldn’t want to drag himself out of bed for the sake of Gabriel et al, either. Still, quarterly reports are important. And Aziraphale’s presentations are always well received.

“What about you?” Aziraphale asks, staring up at the demon with one gimlet eye.

Crowley grins. “Hell believes in being fashionably late. I could even have myself a leisurely breakfast, if I had a mind to.”

Aziraphale pokes Crowley in the shoulder. “If you expect me to get on with things, you’ll have to get _off_ of me, first.”

Crowley rolls over obediently. Then he grabs the angel’s shoulders and tugs his hefty weight on top of himself, instead. Aziraphale glares at him, for a moment. But then his gaze softens and he simply leans forward and kisses the demon soundly on the lips.

“Going to be late,” Crowley reminds him.

Aziraphale sighs and rolls off the mattress, miracling himself tidy and dressed. “Honestly, I don’t understand why I can’t simply send a messenger in my stead.”

“Or conference call in,” Crowley agrees, enabling the angel’s bad mood with fervor. 

“It’s not as if my report ever changes, is it?” Aziraphale grouses as Crowley follows him out into their living room. “‘Humans are decidedly full of free will and using it admirably.’ The end.”

Crowley snorts. “Hey, you stole my report.”

They exchange glances as Aziraphale tugs his coat from the rack and pulls it on over his horrifically outdated garb. 

Their jobs have been a bit weird since Eve and her amassed descendents left the Garden. They Knew, you see, even those who’d never eaten the fruit. And knowing meant they understood the subjectivity of evil and good. They weren’t all kind. They weren’t all cruel. They just...were. And nothing Crowley or Aziraphale did to change them seemed to ever make much difference. Generations spent in paradise had left some sort of marking on Eve and her many, many children. They were immune to any influence but their own.

(After a few hundred years of pretending otherwise, Crowley and Aziraphale had retired. Travelled the world together, explored its ever-expanding boundaries. Hell and Heaven may have tried to reach them, but both demon and angel were frightfully slow about answering their calls. Even now, the quarterly reports are the only concession the two make to having jobs at all.) 

“I don’t suspect this was God’s Plan, exactly,” Aziraphale had admitted that last night in the Garden, as the rain had fallen down and they had holed up in one of the abandoned human houses, enjoying the warmth of their fire.

Crowley had shrugged. “And how would we ever be sure? And what does it matter, anyway? It happened. It’s done.”

Eleven years go, some fool demon had tracked Crowley down and tried to pawn the antichrist off on him. Crowley had laughed in his face, said “good luck, buddy” and gone straight home to Aziraphale to share the joke.

Adam Young is a nice boy. Very fond of apples. Not especially keen on ending the world, actually. Crowley could have told Hell that much. And Aziraphale _had_ told Heaven. They just hadn’t listened.

It’s not all roses, of course. After consuming the fruit of the Tree, Eve and her descendents had, indeed, “surely died.” Age killed them. And disease. And hunger and thirst. And murder, too. But Eve herself--on her deathbed, surrounded by her children and two immortal beings--had said as much: Mortality is a small price to pay for the glory of God’s great world.

Crowley shimmies into his own coat. Aziraphale smooths his plump hands over the shoulders and then straightens the demon’s tie, though it hardly needs it. They meet each other’s eyes and smile. Six thousand years, and they still love with as much fervor and affection as they ever had. 

(Once, while very drunk, Aziraphale had postulated that it was the apple to thank for their romance. “Well, after all,” he had said, “It wouldn’t have been in keeping with our natures, would it’ve?” Crowley had smacked him on the arm and demanded he take it back.

“Would’ve always loved you, Angel,” the demon had slurred. “Don’t talk rot.” And they’d left it at that.)

“St. James’s, after?” Crowley hazards.

Aziraphale smiles. “Always going back to the Garden,” he teases, lightly.

Crowley just shrugs, accepting the jibe. “Like a good tree, that’s all.”

“And ducks,” Aziraphale agrees, readily.

“And looking at clouds,” Crowley adds, following him outside their apartment and miracling the door shut and locked behind them.

The streets of London are teeming with people. Crowley can feel the very thrum of their souls all around. He reaches out, brushing the shoulder of a passing woman with his fingertips. No temptations, no miracles. Just a gentle gesture of recognition. She turns her head and offers him a smile, like she remembers him. They all do that, when Crowley allows himself to be Seen.

In St. James’s park, there’s a statue. Probably not one you’d recognize. It stands tall, carved from dense black rock interspersed with veins of bright silver and gold. From its rock branches hang glass globe lights, shaped like apples. Around the sturdy, shimmering trunk spirals the shape of a large, scaly snake with shining, knowing eyes.

“Good God,” Aziraphale says, every time they walk past it, without fail. “As if your ego wasn’t big enough.” But he always softens the barb with a kiss.

Crowley, for his part, only blushes when they pass it. It’s nice to be acknowledged--and remembered, even if none of the current generation of humanity have the story quite straight, anymore--but certainly awkward, as well. He hadn’t exactly had good intentions, after all.

He likes to think of what Eve might have said, if she’d lived to see the thing. She’d probably laugh at him, like the angel does. But she, too, would soften the blow with a kiss to his cheek. 

“You helped us make a home,” she had told him, thousands of years ago, just before she’d died. “And then you gave us freedom from it. And both of them were good.”

God spoke again to His human people, though rarely as directly as he had in the Garden. Crowley and Aziraphale had been there for most of those incidents, watching from a distance to see what the humans would do.

Noah had built his ark.

Moses had rescued his people.

Joan had gone to battle.

Adam Young had tilted his head and said “Nah, I don’t think so” and kept the world right on spinning. 

Crowley likes the humans. They are, by and large, good stock.


End file.
